Hareidi Viewpoint: Unraveled Knit Kippot

The soul of our nation is as crucial as its body.

Prof. Shmuel Neumann, 11/03/14 14:57

OpEds

Black hatters

INN:SN

Prof. Shmuel Neumann

The writer is actively involved in creating communities for English-speaking olim, and in an emigration program for Palestinians. He currently resides in Jerusalem and was a friend of Rav Meir Chai, murdered by terrorists.

Israel demands that the Palestinian Arabs recognize Israel as the Jewish state, when we ourselves do not recognize Israel as particularly Jewish, and in fact, are ashamed of those who are “too Jewish.”One pull on a not well-knotted knit kippa (yarmulke, skullcap), and it unravels.

Those wearing knitted yarmulkas (the National Religious) who lead the Bayit Hayehudi (Jewish Home) party have deepened the chasm between the black hatters and the knit kippot-wearers. Like in many 'Jewish Homes' (Bayit Hayehudi) there may be children or friends who lose their religious way ('go off the derech'), but when the lost children or friends are allowed to take the lead, indubitably, these families are ultimately unraveled.

Recently, there was a full day conference in Jerusalem by an organization called Keshet which invited professors and government ministers to speak about legislation to declare Israel a Jewish state. What was patently ridiculous is that not one of the speakers had the faintest idea what being Jewish means. In all cases bar none, their idea of Jewish is simply a genetic one, being born Jewish, but with no Jewish values. Never has it been so salient to me how true Rabbi Saadia Gaon’s view was when he stated that the Land of Israel without Torah is like a body without a soul.

The forces of evil are pre-eminent in the frantic attempts to make learning Torah in a consistent and permanent uninterrupted manner, the way it was commanded in the Torah, a crime which is punishable with 2 years imprisonment.

The irony is simply tragic. Israel demands that the Palestinian Arabs recognize Israel as the Jewish state, when we ourselves do not recognize Israel as particularly Jewish, and in fact, are ashamed of those who are “too Jewish.”

The self-hating Jews who comprise the destructive cabal, euphemistically called the coalition, have created an indelible and irreconcilable difference between the hareidi (and chardal) religious and the rest of Israelis and are setting up a situation in which only outside of Israel can a Jew live a devoutly Jewish life as he wishes. And that is exactly the hidden agenda of the hareidi draft law – a tacit expulsion of the hareidim from Israel. Undoubtedly, rather than leave yeshivas, all hareidi yeshiva boys will leave the country. And that serves the secular just fine, as they fear, rightly so, that religious Zionists and hareidim will outnumber them in a generation.

The hareidim will not stop having as many children as possible and that is not an exclusively Israeli hareidi phenomenon. I believe that the average Satmar family in Kiryas Yoel, New York has 12 children.

The irony is that three laws are on the table, to be passed simultaneously. One, to prevent the expulsion of Jews from holy land in Judea and Samaria, is paired with one which guarantees the expulsion of the hareidi Jews from Israel. At the same time, the third law guarantees the tyranny of the majority over the minority who will no longer have smaller parties to represent their particular interests.

In last week’s historic event, where for the first time since the Jewish nation gathered together on Mt. Eival and Mt. Greizim to hear the Biblical blessings and curses on the day they entered Canaan, there were over 600,000 Jewish men gathered in one place in the holy land.

They prayed.

They prayed for rain, and the drought was broken, it started to rain and rain is expected all week.

They prayed for all Jews.

They prayed for Jewish survival, not just of the Jewish body, but of its soul.

While the Israeli Army became, after the Holocaust, an achieved ideal where Jews for the first time in two thousand years could arm themselves and successfully fight back, it has degenerated through the efforts of self-hating Jews who fight wars halfheartedly and are more interested in protecting the enemy “innocent civilians”, even at the cost of Jewish boys' lives, than winning.

Today it is private and semi-private industry that is fighting our battles. Rafael Industries developed and operates the iron dome defense system, has and will control the new laser defense, the unmanned aircraft designed by private industry who continue to assist the military in its operations and modifications. Israel’s top secret installations are not run by the Army, but by professionals. The Air Force and Navy do not accept the average recruit, but the best of the best who will continue to vie to get in, with or without the draft. The foot soldier has thus become irrelevant, as is the draft.

The genius developed in decades of mental toil can better be applied to strategy and technology at a later point in the hareidi’s life when he routinely goes out to work to support a large family and to ensure that sons and sons in law have the opportunity to learn 16 hours a day for many years.

We should not stop having children. Every Jewish child born is a victory over Hitler.

We should not stop those who can and do learn Torah. Every Jew who rejuvenates our culture by intense Torah study and devout observance of the Torah commandments contributes to the resurrection of the six million’s Jewish way of life.

It is the 600,000 black hatters praying together in the holy land which is the resurrection, not of body, but of the soul of the six million and the soul of our nation.